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The Gallery / Faction Stories: Republic Dreams
« on: October 03, 2016, 03:06:20 am »
The Anglean Republic is another mix. Most fluff I've read hints at a Nordic/Scandinavian/Norse kind of culture, as do some of the place names, but some seem to be more Alaskan Tribal/Inuit-esque. So I've decided that the Republic is really two cultures with one squashed under the other, more primitive tribal villages and towns with the Inuit theme under the rule of the far more advanced and powerful steampunk Vikings and they got the Republic idea from Ancient texts. Let me know what you think of all my work, of course, as usual. Also, go Republic! I was aligned with them during open beta. They may have won all the battles, but we had the best songs. Of course, speaking honestly, if Arashi had been open then, I'd have gone with them.



Nerrivek couldn’t remember a time when she had ever been truly warm. Her family’s tiny hut on the shores of the Melting Firth, no matter how brightly the oil lamps burned or how many furs she piled onto her bed, had still been cold, even during the Long Light. The halls of the Ancient buildings and even the newer poor imitations with all their stone and iron, were cold. The northern skies were so cold at the heights the airships flew that it hurt her lungs just to breathe. But nothing was colder than the dark heart of the world that even now, she burrowed towards.

She, like all the members of her team, wore thick layers of furs, dyed a deep Anglean blue and trimmed in white, along with heavy near-black goggles that covered the upper halves of their faces. Leather or rubber would turn brittle and crack with cold where cloth and glass didn’t. Wraps of scarves nearly smothered their mouths and noses, but it kept their extremities from freezing off. Everything was clumsy and awkward. The heavy packs they wore made things worse, crushing their backs under the weight, but they had to be able to carry everything they needed. They were too deep to return to the airship on a nightly basis. If there even was an airship waiting up there for them anymore. Perhaps she had dreamed it. This whole expedition was a mad dream, based on fragments of an Ancient map, nightmares of a city or a fortress or a dungeon beneath the eternal ice of the eastern islands.

Now she trudged down the tunnel, her lantern’s light bringing the blue-white ice around her to life in a searing glare. Her goggles let her see, but it was still absurdly bright. She stepped carefully around the deeper puddles that would soon be frozen again, leaks from the big iron pipes that snaked along either side of the tunnel. Water and ice chunks gurgled through them and jets of steam hissed from loose rivets and joints.

By her figures, they were one and one-half miles below the surface of the massive ice sheet and close to running out of pipes. And to think, her sky lord superiors had been skeptical when she demanded that many, and enough power to run them! Still, it might not be enough. It had taken them months to get this far, if they didn’t find what they came for and finish, the Long Light would come and the ice sheet would begin to move and crack, eventually collapsing all their hard work and anything and anyone inside. It was sleeping now, but occasionally, they could hear distant thunder or feel a tiny shiver as the elder glacier scraped a fraction closer to the sea.

At length, she heard water sloshing about, human voices, and the distinctive hum of arc heaters and turned the last corner to reach the end of the tunnel. The night shift was just finishing up. There before her, three members of her team, wearing thick, high rubber boots, stood in knee-deep water and waved white-hot arc heaters over the face of the ice wall. With each swing, swaths of ice melted, falling in chunks or in streams of water into the pool. Two hoses snaked down to its bottom, greedily gulping up the result of their efforts. It looked easy, but she had done her share of the work and knew it wasn’t. Mining through ice was even more dangerous than mining through rock. She tugged her scarves a little looser.

“How’s it going?” she yelled to be heard through the noise.

One of the team lowered his arc heater to look back at her.

“Great!” he replied. “No one’s died yet! We’re down to the last ten lengths of pipe for each side, though! That means another day or two, depending on what we run into!”

“If it comes to it, we’ll melt out some big pits and start a relay system!” she said. Despite the cold, she was sweating at the idea. Being Utaneutik by birth, she held the right of Anglean Citizenship only grudgingly. While that could not be taken away once earned, many other things could.

Gunjar, for that was the man’s name, laughed at her, perhaps too loudly.

“Perhaps if we keep digging, we’ll come out somewhere down south!” he said, turning back to his work.

Nerrivek sighed. South…now that was a dream. Even the sky lords of Anglea dreamt of the south. If the gods favored the Republic, perhaps she would go there someday. The key had to be here, at the bottom of this tunnel. Then her ruminations were interrupted as the workers cried out, scrambling back. An enormous slab of ice crumbled before them with a series of ear-shattering cracks and they barely made it out of the way before it crashed into the water, drenching everyone. Nerrivek shook herself, swiping her goggles clear, and glanced back and forth. Thankfully, she counted everyone up and moving. More importantly, or nearly so, their equipment was intact. And lastly…she felt weak at the knees as she saw what lay behind the ice.

Stone. Not just any stone, but the grey stone of the Ancients that endured long past the ruin of their world, better than anything the Age of Air could boast. It was cracked and worn from centuries of entombment within the slowly moving ice, but it was intact. If the building itself had survived its slow journey, what lay within would cement her reputation and wealth for life! She tugged her scarves down and breathed deeply, walking forward to the edge of the pool.

“Praise the Ancients,” she said into the sudden quiet as the rest of the team noticed what they had uncovered. “Their wisdom has led us here, to unlock more of their secrets.” May the spirits guide us.

“Unlock the past,” Gunjar said, echoed by the others, “Ensure the future.” And so the traditional blessing was done.

“Well, don’t just stand there!” Nerrivek snapped at them, “Break that slab into bits, drain the rest of the water, then put away the arc heaters! Send a runner to go and get the weapons and drills! If there are other buildings nearby, we might be able to find them too!”

Her people scrambled to obey, but did so laughing. Nerrivek remained where she was. She wouldn’t be moving until they broke through the wall. She had to see, had to know. She needed to make sure the others didn’t destroy anything in their lust for more weapons.


Naturally, it took a while for the drills and jackhammers to cut through the wall. The Ancients built well and the outer walls of their sky-reaching buildings were often two paces thick or more. Nerrivek took the opportunity to get her tools, notebooks, and buckle on a gun belt. Gun oil got thick and even froze in this kind of place, so they were all armed with Mjolnir storm guns. They fired lances of lightning. But, they had major disadvantages. They were bulky, heavy, and only had one shot before the storage cylinders needed replacement. Each of them could only carry two or three replacements, along with all their clothing and other equipment. They also broke down constantly without excessive maintenance, so not all of them were working. Nerrivek gladly handed off her own functioning gun to Gunjar, making her the only one armed with just a broad-bladed knife.

“Is everyone ready?” she asked, looking at the hole they had punched through the wall. Its jagged edges gave it the look of the gaping maw of some hideous animal, waiting to swallow them whole. A chorus of affirmatives answered her. She fought down her fluttering heart and checked one last time to make sure the lantern dangling from her belt was secure.

“Right, then,” she said. “Let’s go. Gunjar, take the lead.”

The big man nodded and moved ahead, the dancing light of his own belt lantern slowly illuminating what lay beyond as he climbed up into the hole. He turned and motioned for the others to follow. Nerrivek was the first to do so, and took his hand as she stepped up. Her goggles were just dangling around her neck now, unneeded, and she caught her breath at what she saw.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this,” she whispered into the stale air. They needed to move slowly, to give the fresh air being piped down from the surface time to seep through the building, however much she wanted to charge ahead. But they had broken into a large room filled with what looked like miniature black towers and nothing else. There was a door at the other end, slightly ajar. She opened her notebook and began sketching the scene in rough strokes with a slim-tipped charcoal pencil, the details to be filled in later. She would also need to describe it, briefly.

“What do you think these are?” Gunjar asked, lightly tapping one of the towers with a gloved hand. It sounded metallic.

She shrugged.

“No idea. We’ll need to cut into one later if we can’t find anything that suggests what they’re for, of course. My guess is they used to supply power somehow. The records say the Ancients took the fires of the sun and caught it in bottles. Maybe these are the bottles? Or boxes?” Finishing her brief description, she snapped her book shut and nodded to him. “Keep going.”

Cautiously, the team advanced to the door. Gunjar tried gently pushing it open, but the hinges were either frozen or rusted in place. He looked to Nerrivek and she nodded. Turning back to the door, he gave it a resounding kick and the hinges gave way with a terrible screech, the door crashing open. Beyond was just a hallway, stretching off beyond the limits of their lanterns. Glass fragments littered the floor, doubtless from the broken panels lining the ceiling, though a few were intact, and frosted over entirely. The shards crunched under their heavy boots. Other doors lined the hallway, as far as they could see. Nerrivek pointed right and they headed that way. The first door to the left was closed and she nodded at it. She had no intention of leaving any unknown area behind them.

Gunjar tried the knob, but like the hinges on the first door, it refused to turn. This time he didn’t ask for permission before kicking it open, the brittle wooden frame splintering easily. He let out a sharp, surprised sound, swinging his rifle down, and for one moment, Nerrivek thought he had seen some automated defense. The Ancients guarded their secrets well. But then he lowered the gun and gestured for her to come forward. Peering in, she gasped, almost dropping her notebook.

Bodies. Lots of bodies.

Perfectly preserved by the stale air and intense cold, they lay in huddled groups. The room looked like a barracks of some kind, with ranks of bunk beds, but it had become a tomb. In all the other Ancient cities and fortresses, the Angleans had rarely found bodies, whether because of the climate reducing them to scattered bones or because whatever had been the ruin of the place had driven them away before dying. This was an unheard-of find. But of course, there was the question on everyone’s mind.

“Check them,” Nerrivek ordered, pointing at the nearest body. “See if you can tell what killed them. Move them as little as possible. Frida, Herleif, watch the door.” She opened her notebook again and knelt down beside the corpse she had pointed at. It was a man of elder years, with little to no hair left on his head. His clothes were much the same as their own, thick coats and pants, but of strange materials. He wore glasses. His face seemed very gaunt and skeletal, pale flesh drawn taut over bones, and when she carefully nudged a lip back, she saw his teeth were only yellow-black stumps and the rest of his mouth was a mass of ancient, blackened blood. She finished her sketching and description as quickly as possible.

“Two ways they died, I think,” Gunjar said to her as she stood up. “Most of them are just skin and bone, it looks like they starved to death. But a few of them died from bullets to the head. We found pistols beside those ones.”

“During the Fall,” Nerrivek said, slowly walking through the barracks, “This place must have been remote, or secret. The ice certainly didn’t reach as far south, but it had to still be cold up here from what they’re wearing. While the rest of the world burned, drowned, froze, and died, this place got ignored, at least enough for this building to stay intact. These were the people who didn’t get out. Everyone must have forgotten them.”

A grave silence fell for a long moment as the team considered the idea.

“Right, then,” Nerrivek said at last, “Call in the salvage teams. Strip the bodies, but be gentle with those clothes. Don’t touch those boxes in the other room yet. Get the pistols, check all the storage lockers in here, bring anything with writing on it to me, any jewelry or valuables go into the lockbox. The rest of us keep going. I didn’t come here to die.” I came here to steal secrets and rob graves, or at least that’s what the sky lords demand. What’s at the center of this place? Is it worth what we’re doing? She knew the answer of course, was that it never was.

2
The Gallery / Faction Stories: Guild Dues
« on: September 26, 2016, 02:13:44 am »
The Guild is something of a mix. I picture them as a combination of Russian/German/Swedish.



The murky twilight, just before dawn, was Radomir’s favorite time of day. He rose before even the faintest hint of light touched the sky most days, bolted down a quick breakfast of warm mush that tasted faintly of turnips and scalding-hot black sludge that vaguely resembled coffee, and tried not to wake his neighbors in the apartment building he shared as he made his way out onto the streets of Starostrog. It was the largest city under Guild authority, the most important port in the Vastness, and a titan of industry, its factories and workhouses supplying wealth beyond the imagining of most poor serfs or bondservants who toiled out in the barren plains to scrape a living out of the poor earth. But just now, it was beautiful.

The factories were just now getting fired up, so the eternal haze that choked the sky was at its faintest, letting a few stars cast their feeble light through the orange-gold glow of the streetlamps and as the first swatches of pale blue appeared somewhere beyond the towering walls of brick that dominated his neighborhood, it cast the oily cobblestones and the rutted gravel alleys in a gentle half-light. He smelled fresh bread from the bakeries. It was just enough to show the outline of the place without illuminating all the sordid details. For a little while, the city was grand as it was said to be.

Radomir’s breath appeared before him in puffs of cloud as he hurried along, crunching through the thin layer of dirty snow that covered the ground. He was grateful for his thick greatcoat and fur cap, perks of his position as Scribe Observant of the airship docks. Every day he dressed in the black with white trim of the Greater Union of Scribes, Typesetters, and Printers, and carried their seal of office in his pocket. He patted his coat to make sure he hadn’t forgotten it and still had it. The streets were almost empty at this hour, which also suited him. So much of his day was spent dealing with people that it was nice he got a little time to himself.

Dawn was in the sky and the city was awake by the time he got to the Union’s main offices in the city. The sign above the door was a marvel of engineering. Properly supplied with motive power from the city’s steam tunnels, it appeared to type out two different messages upon a sheet of paper, then wipe them away to be rewritten anew a moment later with the characteristic ting! of a typewriter. Guild Broadsheet Offices. Starostrog, Provincial, World.

Walking inside, and taking a moment to stamp the crust of snow off his boots on the already-soggy mat, Radomir doffed his cap, but didn’t bother to shrug off his coat. He’d be needing it again soon enough and the Guild only rationed them enough coal to keep the ink from freezing in here anyway. Within, the other two professions of the Union were hard at work setting type, greasing up the printers for the day, and all the other unpleasant tasks involved in printing a broadsheet or three. He greeted several of them, old friends from back in the days when he’d been in their place, but didn’t stop to chat. Instead, he quickly found himself before the thick wooden door of the Union’s boss. Not bothering to knock, he simply walked in. As usual, he was the first Scribe Observant to arrive

To his surprise, Manager Oksana was not waiting with the usual lists of assignments for each Scribe Observant. Only one paper sat on her desk, with Oksana glaring down at it like a gargoyle from behind her steaming cup of coffee. She did not look up as he walked in, but addressed him all the same.

“Radomir, we have a crisis on our hands. I am not going to wait for the others, I need you back out there as soon as I explain this idiocy so we can get back to real business.” Her voice was a throaty rasp that made one wince just to listen to it. According to the most prevalent legend amongst those who served her, Oksana had been the victim of an attempted strangling long ago, which had ruined her voice. Whatever the reason, it was a shame, she was a handsome woman to look at otherwise.

Radomir straightened up, clutching his hat to his chest.

“Yes, ma’am!” he said, nodding.

At last she looked up, but did not pass him the paper.

“Overseer Arefyev is heading north for the Disputed Lands. Naturally, a Scribe shall accompany him, but he has told me the assignment shall go to the first person who can tell him why he is going.”

Radomir blinked in confusion, shuffling his feet awkwardly.

“Ah, your pardon, ma’am, but…has he told anyone of his reasons?”

Her smile was bitter enough to sour wine at fifty paces.

“He took great pleasure in telling me he had told no one. And when I asked him how on earth any Scribe was to discover such information, he replied that he supposed they would have to be resourceful. So, for the foreseeable future or until he leaves, a week from today, three-quarters of my Scribes, yourself included, have this as your only assignment. Find out what that old vulture is up to and do it soon! When the Union’s broadsheets are crippled thanks to every overeager Scribe dreaming of glory, who will they blame? Not him! And you had better believe that if I am held responsible, I will be holding all of you responsible in turn.”

Radomir swallowed hard, hope and fear in equal measure rising within him. Such a chance did not come along every day.

“You have my word, ma’am,” he said, “I’ll do the job.”

“We shall see. You have a ten-minute head start before the other Scribe Observants get here. Don’t just stand there, get going!”

Radomir nodded, hastily tugged his cap back on, and after Oksana’s door was safely closed behind him, began jogging down the hallway, heading for the street once again.


In the brief interim, morning had come to the city and the streets were already getting busy. Radomir was walking without any clear destination in mind. His mind was unsettled and he couldn’t work properly that way. No matter the delay, he needed to work out this problem in his mind. It was madness, to be sure, just as Oksana had said. Oh, he had any number of ideas on how to make educated guesses at the answer to the Overseer’s question. As Scribe Observant of the airship docks, he knew any number of people who could tell him about the most recent events in the Disputed Lands, but any one of those might be what was drawing Arefyev north. Not to mention, his comrades would shortly be flooding the streets, badgering all of their usual contacts and anyone else they could think of for information on the Overseer’s office and whatever gossip and rumors were flowing out of it. That would be a mess, with no one willing to share what they’d learned, contacts and witnesses getting annoyed and keeping quiet, separating the truth from the conflicting mass of reports would be a nightmare…he shook his head.

He looked up to see his feet had taken him up to one of his favorite taverns, where airship crewmen and women spent their time on the ground between voyages. He shrugged and entered. If there was any day for him to spend some of his precious kopeks on himself instead of those he questioned for news, it was today. The heavy wooden door creaked open and a blast of warm air buffeted him before he could slam it shut again behind him. Inside, there were few customers this early on the morning, mostly persistent guests from last night trying to recover. To his delight, he recognized one of them, an ex-Chaladonian deckhand who called herself Numeria Julia Oceanus. She was sitting alone at a table, valiantly trying to keep down her breakfast, though she looked awfully pale. Shrugging off his coat, he kept his voice low as he walked up.

“Hello, Julia. I hadn’t heard your ship was back.”

She looked up somewhat blearily, but a weary smile worked its way onto her face and she waved languidly at the empty chair.

“Ah, Niko! Sit down before I fall over trying to look up at you. Just don’t have a drink. If I see another glass of vodka I’ll have to pay for getting sick all over these nice people’s table and floor.”

He chuckled at the name. Chaladonian names worked strangely and for whatever reason, she had latched on to the Nikolaevitch part of his name as what to call him, just as he called her Julia because it was the only part of her name he could pronounce right.

“If you want to hear about the voyage, give me an hour or so,” she went on. “I don’t think anything happened to us worth mentioning anyway.”

“Actually,” he said slowly, “I wouldn’t mind it if you’d pretend to listen to me for a while. I have a problem of my own.”

She shrugged and gave him another sublime wave.

“Talk away. Gods know I could use a distraction.”

And so, he laid out his current assignment and problem and she went on with her very careful eating. After he finished, even though he hadn’t thought of any solution to the problem, he did feel better for having been able to complain to someone else about it.

“Niko,” she said at length, “Why not just ask him? Arefyev or whoever. Isn’t that the first thing you’d do if this wasn’t a job from him anyway?”

He laughed again.

“That would defeat the point of this whole challenge in the first place, I’m afraid.” But then, a thought struck him like a brick to the head. “Although...he must have recorded his reasons somewhere. Private papers, probably. If I could just get a peek at them…” He shuddered, afraid to even contemplate the idea, but it was starting to make more and more sense the longer he thought about it. “He can’t really complain if we go to extreme measures since he has as well, can he? It wouldn’t be too much different from some of the things you’ve helped me with.” He nodded, smiling again. Oh, he might well be disgraced and penniless on the streets of Starostrog before the week was out, but he had to admit, no Scribe Observant worth their title could back down from a challenge.

“Julia,” he said, “I’ll need your help. How long are you in town for and where are you staying?”

She was somewhat clearer-headed by this time and returned his grin with one of her own, showing off her proudest possession, the full set of teeth that it seemed every Chaladonian claimed as a birthright.

“Oh, we’ll be in for a few days at least while the Captain looks for the next job. I’m bunkered down over at the Lightning Rod. What’s this help you need?”

“I need to gather the others first,” he said. “Can you cover the east side of town if I get the west?”

“At the usual rate? Sure. How many do you want me to get?”

“Everyone.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone!” he exulted, standing up and snatching up his coat. “We’ll meet back here.”

She chuckled.

“And what happens here?”

“We make history!”

3
The Gallery / Faction Stories: Imperial Decree
« on: September 13, 2016, 12:26:32 am »
Another of my ideas, this one is for Yesha. Obviously I'm going with Chinese for them. This one is more complete in and of itself than the previous story, but if anyone wants to pick it up and run with it, send me a PM or something.



The days were all the same within the Way. Li Zhao was content. Then the Lost came.

He burned with shame as he ran from his father’s curses and his mother’s pleas and the shouts of his siblings. His ancestors would smite him for this, but he had to see! Scrambling down the rocky slope to the coarse sands of the northern coast, he stared up at the skies, his eyes wide and his mouth open.

Below the gray wall of cloud that had come with the spring rains, the pillars of heaven shook as the Warrior Caste did battle. Seven mighty dragon-ships bearing the Crane of Yesha stood against nine hulking demons of steel and lightning out of the north. He didn’t know the symbol upon their sides, only that they brought the Lost to make war upon those who had found the Way. For most, that would have been enough, but even as they spat thunder at his people, he wished with all his heart to know why, to know who, to know what it was that drove them without knowing the Way.

His heart leapt into his throat as one of the Lost ships flared like the sun and began to crumble and twist apart as it fell, pieces falling like rain. Then he realized it was falling at him and he dove behind an enormous driftwood log, his wits scattering like grains of rice and he knew only fear and regret. The faces of his family appeared before him.

The earth trembled at the force of the crash and a searing hot wind engulfed him. The sound swallowed the world. He waited to meet his ancestors. Then he waited more. Then he saw his own shaking hand resting on the sand in front of his eyes and knew he was alive. Slowly, he forced his shivering body upright, hauling on the log, and found a jagged slab of metal had torn into the earth only a few paces away. He collapsed to the ground again at the sight and it was another long moment before he could get back up. But get up he did, and made his way towards the main body of the wrecked ship, across the blackened beach, often looking up at the sky where the battle raged on, but the Lost ships seemed to be withdrawing, back towards the north.

It burned and smoldered in places, and he could hardly tell that it had only moments ago been an airship at all, it was so mangled and broken. Then he saw the first body. He had never seen a dead man before and it was strange how…alive he still looked. The Lost man was quite young, it seemed, and his open eyes stared forever up at the sky. The only marks Li Zhao saw on him were a handful of bloody rents in his thick blue coat. It must have been enough, or perhaps the fall killed him. But he was very still. Zhao wanted to close the staring eyes, but he dared not touch the dead flesh. He moved on, closer to the wreck. Then he heard the voice, in halting, poorly accented Yezi.

“…help….me…”

He whirled about to see that one of the people he had thought dead had rolled over and was reaching out to him with one hand. He froze in place, caught like a wolf in a trap.

It was a woman, but that was no surprise, for the Way permitted all the merited to do as they had earned. What was surprising was the pained blue eyes and the unruly mop of gold hair. Her outstretched hand held a small gun, such as those the Warrior Caste was permitted to carry, but it shook so that he found he did not fear it. He walked slowly over to her, his hands raised.

“No…hurt,” he said slowly, fumbling for the simplest words he could think of. “No dead. I help.”

He could hardly be more foolish, he knew, but the battle still raged, though it had moved out over the cold sea, and the Warrior Caste garrison at the nearest town would not get her soon enough to save her life. It was the duty of all those of the Way to preserve the lives of the Lost so their minds might be opened. He was only doing what any should have done, or so he told himself. He would take her to the healer so that when the soldiers of Yesha came, she could be taken away like all the others, to the foreign settlements where former Lost could be with their own people who had found the Way.

“Help…” she said again, gesturing feebly with the gun. “Help? Live?”

“Help live,” he said, nodding, and she relaxed, letting her arm thump to the sand. He reached down and took the gun from her limp grip and threw it away, ignoring her strangled protest. Then he pointed towards the village.

“I get help,” he said, pointing repeatedly. “There. Help there.” She seemed to understand, for she nodded and pointed the same way. He turned and ran as fast as he could. It would take some time for the soldiers to arrive, even once they knew of the Lost captive. Perhaps he could ask some of the questions that had tormented him since he knew of her people? For the first time, he was glad he had disobeyed his elders to come here.



It was two days before he saw the Lost woman again. His father was angry with him and his punishment was to receive the hardest work on the farm. There were days he feared his feet might well freeze off from wading in the icy cold rice paddies much of the day for the spring planting. But his father was right to do so, Zhao had disobeyed a merited superior of the caste in regards to wisdom. It was the Way. Zhao remembered to thank his father for not sentencing him to something worse. When he was younger, he had nightmares about the time when a disobedient son from the Gao family was sentenced to twenty strokes of the cane.

At least Healer Lao came each evening to tell Zhao of his patient’s progress, and commended him for thinking not to move her by himself. But that brought more guilt, for Zhao remembered when he returned that the Lost woman was not where he had left her, having crawled over to where he had thrown her gun and the gun was nowhere to be seen. He had said nothing, fearing for Healer Lao’s life, but nothing was stopping him now. He told himself there was nothing to be done until the soldiers came. Word had been sent, and a detachment of the Laborer Caste was being sent to clear the airship wreckage on the beach and that which had washed ashore, so that it might be repurposed in some way. And soldiers would arrive soon to take custody of the prisoner. He didn’t have much time.

Now, finally, his father had agreed to let him go and speak to the Lost woman after the evening meal, and it was all he could do to stop himself from bolting down his food and keep to a walking pace until he was out of sight of the house. Lao was expecting him, of course.

“It is good that you wish to know why we follow the Way, Zhao,” he said, leading him into the little hut where he kept his more seriously injured patients and where his apprentice, Xiahou An slept. But as fortune would have it, An was off tending to a sickly newborn at the Yu household. “But,” Lao went on, giving him a stern look, “You must tell me, if you are able to speak with her, what it is that she says. Wisdom comes from many sources, that is how we found the Way, and you must not think her words exist somewhere outside of it. They are nothing more than a corruption of its teachings, for it exists within us all.”

Zhao bowed respectfully.

“Yes, Healer,” he said.

“And you have heard what Teacher Yan says about the Lost nation to the north, so there is nothing further of value you need know about it and its people. I trust you will discover this for yourself and your curiosity will be sated. It is good to question and learn for oneself, but only within reason.”

Zhao bowed again.

“Yes, Healer.”

Lao frowned at him for another moment, then chuckled.

“You would have won the merit of the Sage Caste, Zhao, if you had been able to go to the District Examinations, you are so eager to instruct and learn from it. Go on, then, before it grows too dark.”

“Thank you, Healer,” Zhao said, grinning at him, and entered the hut.

The Lost woman was laying on one of the three cots, and sat up as he walked in. Her old clothes lay in a neatly folded stack at its foot and she wore one of the spare tunics Lao kept on hand for his patients. Zhao smiled awkwardly and bowed a little, unsure what precepts applied.

“Hello,” he said, remembering to speak slowly, and pointed to himself. “Li Zhao.”

She smiled a little and pointed to herself.

“Saffi Eriksdottr.”

He blinked, unsure how to pronounce such a long and strange name.

“Um…Zhafei?” he tried.

She shrugged.

“Zhafei,” she said, and he chuckled nervously. She reached over to the little table at the side of the cot and picked up a calligraphy student’s sandbox. The shallow, long space of sand was meant for practicing Yezi characters. He watched, fascinated, as she took up the practice stick and wrote with her one good hand, the other arm being splinted and held firmly in place.

Hello, Zhao.

“You speak our language?” he asked, confused. She smoothed out the sand and wrote again, trying to make the characters as small as possible, and sometimes having to erase it and keep writing from the middle of a sentence.

I study old writing. Some old writing is like your language. I can read and write it, but not speak it very well. If you write your questions, I will understand you much better.

Zhao picked up a spare writing stick at once and eagerly scribbled his first question.

Why did you come here with your ships?

She winced, her eyes falling, but replied at once.

There are ancient cities and ruins in Yesha your people refuse to enter. We came for the knowledge and power within them.

Well, that made little sense to Zhao. A frown creased his features as he wrote again.

But the ancestors of old destroyed the world! Why seek such knowledge again? We should make our own way forward.

Her own expression took on a stern set.

All the knowledge you have, the Old Ancestors had before. You are not making your own way, you are rediscovering what they lost, and doing it poorly and slowly.

He sighed. So it was just as Teacher Yan had said, then, the Lost truly did not understand. But why?

Why do your people refuse the Way?

Now she seemed just as confused as him.

We do not wish to be slaves and to have our lives decided for us.

I am not a slave. I tested at the local examinations and my greatest talent was for farming. I do what I am best at. My life was decided by my great skill, not someone else.

But are you happy here? If you could, would you go somewhere else, do something else?

He hesitated in his answer and saw a grim smile appear on her face. Scowling, he wrote somewhat quicker than necessary, scattering a few grains of sand across her blankets.

I follow the Way. Anyone’s life can be happy if they achieve inner harmony and are granted the respect due a skilled and merited worker. Even though it seems to me you are a scholar, studying old languages, you came to Yesha on a warship. Does that make you happy?

No, but I chose it.

He gaped.

You chose to be unhappy?

I chose the best way to serve my nation, with skills I learned because I wanted to learn them and was lucky enough to have the chance to do so. I can be unhappy that my work is difficult and now that it has killed me, but I am satisfied that I did the best I could.

He scratched his head with a sigh, unsure what to make of anything she said. Perhaps Lao was wrong. Trying to understand the Lost way of thinking was just making his head hurt.

I am sorry I cannot tell you about the Way in a method you understand.

She smiled at him again, and he felt a little better.

I understand, I simply do not agree. She hesitated, then continued. Would you come visit again tomorrow? Your doctor is kind, but he tells me nothing. He says he is not the one to teach me of anything about Yesha.

Zhao shrugged.

If you want me to, yes. Perhaps I can try to teach you a little Yezi and you can tell me about your country. I have heard it is very different from here.

I look forward to it.

He bowed one last time and began to turn to leave, but she held out an open hand. He slowly held out his own hand and she took it and squeezed, shaking it up and down, then let go, laying back down on the cot. Zhao left, but all the questions whirling about his head like fireflies told him he wouldn’t get much sleep tonight.



The next day, Zhao emerged from his family’s house to find one of the Yeshan airships from the great battle looming at one end of the village like one of the great dragon lords who ruled the sky. Not only that, but a group of soldiers was in the village square, he could see their bright uniforms even from a distance. They would be speaking to Mayor Xu, no doubt, and the Council of Elders. Zhao broke into a run as he made his way down towards them. They were going to take away the Lost woman before he could even ask any questions! He should have expected this, but he had thought perhaps it would take a little time for them to check in with the village.

As he drew up, he saw it was indeed Mayor Xu. Zhao at once bowed low before the soldiers, but did not dare to speak. He greatly hoped the mayor would ask him to, though. Xu seemed glad to see him.

“Ah, good morning,” he said. “This is Li Zhao, the young man I was just telling you of who found the survivor and saw that her wounds were attended to. Zhao, this is Lieutenant Po Kai of the Imperial Navy. He has asked to speak with you.”

The Lieutenant stepped forward, giving Zhao an appraising look. He was a tall, lean man with sharp, angular features and narrowed, intelligent eyes. Not one strand of dark brown hair was out of place on his topknot.

“I am told you disobeyed your father and elder to observe the battle,” he said. “What drove you to lose the Way, even briefly?”

Zhao went very pale. When he was younger, he had nightmares about the time when one of the Gao family’s sons was sentenced to twenty strokes of the cane. The Mayor and elders were usually much more lenient with the laws, but if he needed to show that Luxen Village still followed the Way, Zhao could be in for a lot of pain. Zhao knelt at once, bowing his head.

“I wished to know more of the Lost, sir,” he stammered weakly. “I have not learned the lessons of my teachers, for I do not understand how they can refuse the Way when it is explained to them and I wish to know more than I need to about them. I am ashamed.”

“There are some things that cannot be fully tested by the Examinations, Farmer Zhao,” Po said, sounding thoughtful. “One of them is dedication. If you would risk death to learn more of the Lost, perhaps you have more merit than for farming.”

Zhao kept his head down, but a wild, foolish thought took shape in his mind.

“Mayor,” Po said at length, “With your permission, I would like to offer Farmer Zhao my patronage for a Reexamination at the Provincial grade.”

Xu bowed slightly, but there was no smile on his face, to Zhao’s surprise.

“It is granted, Lieutenant. Zhao, do you wish to accept Lieutenant Po’s offer?”

Zhao’s grip on his knees grew white-knuckled. It was all happening so fast! He had never dreamed of anything like this! To be offered the chance to test his merits against the entire province, with so many more castes and tasks laid out before him than the Local grade Examinations could offer!

“I-I would be honored to accept, sir,” he managed to get out.

Po finally smiled, a little thing, quickly gone, but it was there.

“Rise, Farmer Zhao. You will come with us aboard the Cleansing Fire from the Skies, for we have been ordered to transport your Lost prisoner back to the provincial capital. From what your Mayor and healer have told us, she is a scholar-soldier of some sort among the Lost. When she accepts the Way, her knowledge and merits will serve Yesha well. It will be well to have you along. You saved her life, and it is likely she will be more willing to talk to you. We have a translator aboard as well, that speaks her tongue. Do not bring more than twenty pounds, for all weight is precious in the air. We depart in one hour. Do not be late.”

He bowed to the Mayor, then turned on his heel and led his squad away towards Healer Lao’s house, leaving Zhao kneeling in the dust, still profoundly shocked. Xu took hold of him and hauled him to his feet. The mayor still seemed sad and frustrated.

“It is a good thing you took his offer,” he said. “You will go far on your merits, Zhao, I am sure of that.”

“But?” Zhao asked the obvious question.

Xu shrugged with a sigh.

“The higher you go, the farther it is to fall. Your Lost prisoner learned that lesson well, as have too many soldiers and lords of Yesha. Here, at least, you would have been at peace.”

Zhao lowered his gaze.

“I am sorry, mayor. But I must follow my merits as the Way demands. How could I be at peace if I am not at peace with myself?”

“There is more than one kind of peace and merit,” Xu murmured. “Ah, but enough, we waste time. Go and say farewell to your family, Zhao.”

Belatedly, the idea struck the young farmer as though a second airship had fallen on his head. What would his father say? His mother? His brothers and sisters? He would have to leave, who knew for how long, and even if he attained greater merit and standing, his home would never again be in Luxen Village. He turned around and began to walk slowly back towards his house, each step a long distance. The Way had never seemed quite so long a road to follow. But all he could do was keep walking.

4
The Gallery / Faction Stories: A League of Her Own
« on: September 06, 2016, 10:49:18 pm »
I've been working on a series of short stories about a character from each faction and this is the first one I've got partway finished. If there's any interest, I'll write the rest of it. And regardless, thoughtful criticism is always appreciated. I made the League with a Spanish-Arabic flavor. The names of their settlements on the map seem Spanish-inspired, and combine that with the theme of Moorish Valencia in the south of Spain for the desert setting and it seems to work pretty well.



Ever after, Zoraida would remember the silence the most, when God came to Caldera.

God’s Wrathful Eye, burning bright in the cloudless sky, smote the land with fire, so hot that a man could spit upon the rock and watch it sizzle away before he took his next scorching breath. The air shimmered with heat, and the unceasing smoke that rose from the town’s foundries and machine shops hung in a haze in the still, cloudless sky. It was the height of the dry season in the desert. It was a good time to go Outside.

Zoraida was at work, ignoring the complaints of her near-empty stomach and the half-full bowl of greasy sludge that passed for a meal on the walkway behind her. Warm gun oil smeared her hands as she carefully slid the iron guts of a Torbellino rotary gun back into place. Like all things of the desert that were precious, the town’s little shipyard was hidden. Along with the rest of the town, it sat within the vast stone bowl that gave the place its name. Adobe mud-brick columns supported dusty, tattered hides to make pathways of shade across the caldera slopes so that even the poorest could walk about without searing the flesh from their feet. Little pinpricks of darkness marked where the entrances to the real dwellings and shops were, hacked deep into the volcanic rock where God’s Eye never reached.

“Ay, Zora, you could have built a new gun with how long it is taking to fix that one!” came the laughing voice of her crewmate.

Zoraida considered turning the weapon upon him once she had finished. Ah, but then I only have to patch the bullet holes in her skin. Again. O God, I pray you make this day my destiny, I have endured trials to make me strong enough for anything, does not this man prove as much?

“That I could do,” she agreed quietly, without taking her eyes off her work. “Give me ten pesetas and I will make for you the finest gun in all Arashi.”

She grinned at the sounds of strangled outrage from behind her.

“Ten pesetas? No gun is worth that much!”

She grunted as she forced the final piece into place and reached back to grasp her wrench.

“Mine are! The guns of Zoraida are made of scrap metal and goat droppings, yet they are as good as those of the Outsider nations. Imagine what I might do with proper coin and metal. Ah, but I forget myself, that would require having a chieftain who is not content with giving us only goat droppings, no doubt from being half goat himself, the way he digs in his hooves to keep this one ship weak and the women on it weak and the tribe weak and all Arashi weak along with us!” On the last word, she gave the final twist to the stubborn bolt, then let out a satisfied sigh. Tossing down the wrench, she slammed the gun’s cowling back into place, then began fastening it there with leather strips. Look at this! Bits of worn leather where there should be a catch and bolts! It still has bullet holes from the last battle! And will there be metal to patch them? No! It will all go to keep the rest of our fleet whole while my ship is left wounded! Curse the rule of command, the rule of one in three, and the goat-kissing elders who made them! May their souls be devoured by scorpions!

She heard footsteps and then her crewmate was close behind her, speaking in a low, nervous voice.

“I wish you would not speak so loudly, Zora! You are no swordswoman, nor do you have one to match Gervasio for all your talk. One day he will hear you and he will kill you. And then we would not have such fine guns to shoot, how could I live with myself?”

Tying the final knot, she wiped her hands on a rag already soaked with grease, then turned around to lean back against the gun, her head dropping with a sigh as she looked down at herself. Zoraida was many things, but no sword-swinger. She was a short woman, with the lean, wiry muscles of a mechanic and tiny, thin-fingered hands, and the loose, sweat-stained clothes she wore did nothing to flatter her. Like most who worked with machinery, she cut her hair short, the black locks only barely covering the tops of her ears. In contrast, her crewmate, Feliciano, was tall and strong, the sort of smug handsome she sometimes wanted to punch in the face and dressed in the red and gold of the League. But then, she was a gunner and he helmsman, she would only get fine clothes stained with ash and grease.

“Let him hear,” she murmured. “I am tired of pretending. Every woman in this town is tired of pretending. We live, but that is all. We spend the blood and honor of our daughters like water upon the sands, thinking that one day it will wash away our tribe’s weakness, but we could drown all Arashi in a red sea and still the desert would stay weak and die that way. It is not just that, either, anyone, man or woman, who tries to speak of claiming land and wealth Outside is condemned or slain. How many have died at the hands of their sworn comrades, hm?” She leaned in, forcing him back. “How many times have you watched the wailing of those who have lost all and been as moved by it as the mountain stone because it happens all the time? The Outsider nations, for all their weakness, are not so blind, they know what it means to conquer! Arashi could be the strongest nation in this world if we did the same, for have we not already been tested! We would have the numbers and the strength to push out and take what we wish, to challenge the might of the jailers of Yesha and the vultures of the Guild and win! God has tested us and found us strong, all of us, and we should use that strength! There is a world out there, waiting for the strong to seize it!”

Whatever Feliciano might have said was interrupted. A high, wailing note sounded far above them, the call of a warhorn. It was echoed by many more shortly afterwards, and Caldera boiled like a kicked hornet’s nest as its warriors hurried to prepare. Zoraida sighed.

“Ah, and we are out of time, or near enough. Our petty thieving begins again. Well then, if you would make up for watching the suffering of my sisters in arms and watching our nation continue ruling over only the dust of the earth, now is the time. Will you join me?”

“Zoraida,” he said quietly, “You frighten me worse than the Death of the Eye. What is it you are planning?”

She let out a mirthless chuckle.

“Planning?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

His eyes went wide and his mouth hung open for a long moment.

“What have you done?” he breathed.

“I?” she asked, her bitter smile spreading wider, and he reeled back, holding onto the walkway railing for support.

“Who else have you persuaded to join you in this folly? How many? God grant me strength, Zora, what have you done?”

Her laughter was the sound of breaking glass.

“And again, the wrong questions? Done? It is what I am about to do that should concern you, Feli.” With her callused hands, she reached behind her and grasped the handles of the Whirlwind, then spun about, swinging the big gun completely around so that she hung suspended over the rocky ground forty paces below, her feet scraping the edge of the gunner’s post and only her grip on the trigger handles keeping her alive. Feliciano froze as the muzzle came to rest pointed squarely at his chest.

“In case you are thinking I am bluffing because the autoloaders are not connected, there is a single round loaded,” she told him, cursing the waver in her voice and the way her grip tightened on the braided leather handles. “I am sorry, but what I do here today is too important. Today, this ship flies under a woman’s command. Are you with me?”

“And if I say no?” he asked, his breaths coming fast and shallow, eyes fixed upon the dark maw of the gun barrel in front of him.

“Then we wait until they arrive and you will be bound and put off the ship. If you try to cry out and warn someone…” She took a shuddering breath. “Tears of the sky, Feli, I don’t know! I do not want to kill you! But you stand atop the bodies of a thousand women, in the way of glory and greatness for Arashi. I…I don’t know. Please…let us not find out.”

“You would trust me if I said yes?” he asked.

“Of course! You saved my life,” she said. “I would have killed myself trying to get to Gervasio had you not stopped me. You are a man of honor and I will trust you to speak the truth here. If it means my life and that of those who trusted me, so be it. But I am Arashi and Calderana and a warrior and I will not let you outdo me in matters of honor.” An absurd, nervous giggle escaped her lips at the pathetic joke and she swore silently again. Fool that I am!

Although the air was full of noise, the sound of running feet, airship crewmen shouting, and warhorns still wildly blowing, all Zoraida could hear was the silence between them. At last, Feliciano nodded slowly.

“I will follow,” he said, hanging his head. “You knew it would be so before you began to speak.”

She immediately swung back around onto the walkway proper, putting the gun back in its proper position, and practically collapsed onto the railing, her legs shaking as relief flooded through her.

“I am sorry,” she whispered.

He nodded miserably.

“Ay, so am I, but not for what you think. I am sorry this is the only way for me to see that you live. But you will not be Isabella, not while I draw breath.”

The arrival of many clattering feet caused both of them to look down towards the docks, where a group of people approached, all swathed in robes and head-wraps. Getting to her feet, Zoraida hurried to the ladder to the main deck and slid down it, followed closely by Feliciano.

“Is it done?” she demanded of the new arrivals, “Are they all dealt with?”

The foremost stranger pushed back her head-wrap to reveal the leathery features of Beatrice, engineer’s mate.

“All of them!” she replied, grinning back. “And the ships have been dealt with.”

“The ships?” Feliciano asked.

“Nothing serious,” Zoraida hastened to assure him, “But we cannot be pursued while the fleet is still within patrolling distance of Caldera.” Then she turned back to her crew, the rest of whom were now shedding their head-wraps and shrugging off robes to reveal all of them were women as well.

“Feliciano is coming with us,” she said, clapping her friend -if she could still call him that after today – on the shoulder. “If any should look upon us with far-eyes, he will wear the captain’s clothes and bark orders so they think a man commands. But when battle comes, he will pilot as he has done before.” She held up a hand before the pilot among the crowd could protest. “He is the best among us and you all know it, there is no shame in that. But I am glad to have another pilot with us, should he fall. Now, to your posts! We go to plunder the wealth of the Outside and I will not see us fall behind!”

The crew – her crew – scattered, quickly moving to their stations. Zoraida did so as well, moving up to the captain’s post in the center of the main deck, just behind the helmsman.

Outsiders named their ships after many things: flowers, virtues, ideas, beasts. The Arashi League named theirs after women, for an airship was a living thing, as any airman knew, one that all those who flew upon it treasured as they would a wife. They named it for the woman that the crew most agreed resembled it. Those poor, brave pilots of the flea-craft swarm named theirs after sisters for the most part, being too young to marry. Zoraida’s ship was the greatest that Caldera could boast of, having started life as a Pyramidion hull in the service of the Guildsmen to the far east. She was old now, even in the lives of men rather than ships, and all the more loved for that. She had been named after the most respected female elder of the town at the time and so the name Azucena was painted upon her bow, after the rarest of the delicate flowers that could be coaxed to life by the oases of the Arashi. Now she came to life once more to serve her people.

The engineers worked their magic and the main engine coughed grudgingly into life, sputtering at first, then rising to a healthy rumble. The two turning engines came next, and that was less difficult, for she knew the soul of the ship was roused and battle-hungry even as she herself was. Zoraida listened to the calls of the crew, one by one, as they reported in.

“Engines ready!” said Beatrice, patting the worn wood of the hull with one gnarled hand and the biggest smile Zoraida had ever seen on her.

“Guns ready!” came the shout of Emperatriz from the high gun platforms. Just afterwards, Zoraida heard the distinctive click-clack of the autoloaders locking into place and shook her head slightly. Anticipating, as usual.

“Helm ready!” Feliciano’s comparatively deep voice carried across the deck as he spun the wheel back and forth, listening to the turning engines purr in answer.

Azucena awaits your command, captain,” said Juanita, her second. The other woman was a bronze tower who had somewhere found an enormous scimitar, just as she had always wanted.

“Cast off!” Zoraida ordered, and the command was promptly obeyed. The moment the last of the thick ropes were untied and flung to the stone docks, she looked to Feliciano and bellowed, “Helm! Ahead slow, raise ship to one thousand paces! Course, north-north-east! Form up with the fleet!”

“Ahead slow, one thousand, north-north-east, aye, captain!” he replied, and reached over to shove the tarnished brass throttle upwards. The quiet rumble of the engines became a blaring drone as the propellers spun up. Azucena was moving.

“Today we teach the Outsiders that only the Arashi know true strength!” Zoraida shouted to her crew, striding back and forth along the deck with a furious energy. “The lands that have made them soft, we will water with their blood! All that they have, the strongest shall take and they will know that their days are at an end! Outsiders, Beware!

The battle cry of the League was echoed by those upon the other ships and from there to the town itself until all Caldera resounded with it. Even Zoraida screamed it into the din. Her heart hammered like a war drum. Battle was coming.


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